Opia. Noun. The ambiguous intensity of looking into someone's eyes, which can fell simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.

As you lie in my arms, watching the television, you don't notice that my undivided attention is focused on you. Something I've been dreaming of for weeks, and it's finally come true. Even better, from your angle, you can't see me staring into your eyes, so I don't feel the nervous compulsion to turn away. Whether directly or not, I could drink in your eyes with mine, for hours, and they would be among the best hours of my life.
Then there's the other hand, held tightly by trepidation. I love the prospect of your eyes staring into mine, but it's not without its fears. I'm afraid you'll see all the pain and fears that I've spent the past seven years working to overcome. I'm afraid you'll see all the insecurity and doubts I have about myself. I'm afraid you'll see all the words that I long to whisper in your ear, but can't, because I'm terrified of scaring you away. I'm afraid you won't like the fact that, behind these eyes lies only pictures and thoughts of you. But most of all, I'm afraid that, unlike me, who loves every detail, and lives for moments like these, you won't love the things you see. I long for the day when you stare happily into my eyes, but I'm frightened that you won't enjoy the secrets they reveal.

Dopamine addict itched for a serotonin fix,
Gazing into this sonder mirror,
The craving for opia hit.

Staring down mydriasis, shooting up
with the metaphysics. Consigned to it,
Being strung out on ∃xistence, whatever
depth you'd ascribe to it. Know that passion
is incandescent, embrace peace as effervescent;

Lost in the gaze of fall liberty,
Rainy daze in winter ecstasy.
Found in a maze of spring empathy,
Azure haze of summer vibrancy.

Mescalito tornado on desert sands,
Shroom typhoon on distant shores,
∀cid cyclone on the horizon,
Pharmahuasca maelstrom
drank the earth.

Ion chaser ate a hurricane
and thus The Empyrean was born.

Not the first, nor hundredth view inside.
Masks forgotten with departed boundaries,
Tied through inner worlds and silenced words;
Stripped. Of everything but a shadowed view of depth.

With this, a fall into bottomless fragility.
A glittering lock of unknown vulnerability;
A naked tether. Souls on show.
An illuminance playing in purity below.

Outlines blurred of who, or what, we are,
With memories brought ashore in tidal waves.
After learning to float, succumb to the intricate sway
Of days spent glimpsing our reality.

And you remind me of every person I know and love.

If you can live long enough,
Life will teach you how to live,
And in the moment we'll grow.

And all I can give
Is nothing more than the truth
As we reap what we sow.

I guess it's true what they say,
You live and learn,

Misguided youth now we wait and burn,

I guess it's true that it's easier to fake than it is to actually do.

The devil disguised in the roots,
I watched him grow inside of you.
Inspite of you, I was inspired by you,

But
I was just passing through,
Transparent apparently on a path led with tangled leaves,
Tread into the ground.

I guess it's true that were bounded by love.
As the seasons changed so did the reasons to fall.

And I fell for you implicitly,
like rain drops from clouds.

I will finish five months of therapy
yet find myself wondering
should I have made it an even six?

I question with Four Tet on, As Serious
As Your Life has been, any answers given
have left me wondering.

How seriously do I take it,
Opia, existence?
All I want is to love life,
I thank music for being so kind. What Rom Di Prisco cast
I would divine, Gamma Velorum, Graviphoton, any other insight.

Today I considered several fluorinated analogues for the 2C-x and DOx families, extending these considerations to the 2C-T-x and Aleph branches of their respective family trees. There are perhaps
over a dozen viable compounds, clinical trials pending.
Afterwards I took a lengthy shower and cooked dinner.
Following this I joined my compatriots upon campus, wherein we engaged in conversation aided by the consumption of ethanol and caffeine, tonic wine indeed. These are my thoughts while I am still
drunk and wired. I've been afraid

I might not be ready to leave, I know I am.
"Ohana means family
and family means nobody gets left behind".

I'm coming back.
In that glittering, bottomless moment a pair of opaque pupils refocus.

"The ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable."

Invasive?
Doesn't a deep gaze carry
numerous hooks disguised as unpretentious interrogation marks?
They're faster than the blink of the eyelids,
ambitiously break into the one in front,
stealing something
not for sale in the first place.

But, you just wanted to know
...just wanted to know that sparkling little piece of life behind the curtains of the iris
Then you suddenly find yourself apologizing
It was not your intention to set your noxious questions free,
hooks of someone else's life

Vulnerable?
You smell the eyes in front of you,
You see they can effortlessly listen to your thoughts, which have been screaming anyway, from the windows, of your soul.
Even those ignored little parts insist on showing off

You can almost physically feel it,
streams of dense water travelling
from the very core of your cells,
going up your veins,
holding your breath for a second when passing through your throat,
until it finally reaches your pupils' edge,
where they can bluster it out
and it's gone!
You're left with the hope
that the eyes in front of you haven't seen the spectacle.

opia- the intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable
i squint, my eyes scrunching until i can only see through a slits of my eyelids.
i see your blue eyes staring back at me. neither squinting nor widening
“this staring contest is too much. i can not win” i state.
i continue starting.
your mouth moves. gliding from smile to a sly smirk.
“you’re right. you can’t win, i’m the best at this game”
you reach across the table placing your soft palms against my cheeks.
holding my face in your hands as if i were a little child.
oh your hands are so warm
and so soft that i can’t help but opening my eyes.
my gaze rises and soon our eyes are at the same level.
your eyes are dark blue
almost as if they were made of the water from the deepest parts of the ocean.
there is mystery behind those eyes
and i know that if i stare too long
i will turn to stone and become captive in your stare.
but no
i’m like a blind woman in love with medusa.
the more i gravitate towards you
the deeper i fall into your eyes.
deep dark blue eyes
dipping into my baby blue soul
stripping me of all my inhibitions.
i guess
you’ve won the staring contest.

Just let me see you
Let me look in your eyes
Because after five minutes
Everything will be alright

Word of the day - OPIA
Meaning - the ambiguous intensity of eye contact
______
All over the world,
I’ve heard legends
about an evil soul
re-birthed
because one woman,
dressed all in white,
her beauty like nature’s light,
her lips, full and cherry red
and her eyes,
eyes like that of a huntress.
One look from her,
and the dead man reawakened,
from love, from passion.
I never believed in the lore.
A man and woman
conversing in the language of eyes.
But two hours ago,
I met such a huntress
and once my eyes met hers,
no fireworks erupted around us
no violin strings
no flower petals falling from up above
just a wave of peace
and calmness
took over my soul.
I have committed dark sins
that stole my sleep at night
but one look from her
and I wasn’t terrified anymore
because I believed,
I had a chance at redemption.
I suddenly trusted the darkness
that resided in me.
Just one look
and I knew that
I could be purified too.
It wasn’t love.
It was magic,
and a dose of it
was all I needed
to be re-birthed.

₁Peering into my eyes in a darkened room
Your dog curled up, lilliputian,
Quietened behind the wall across from us
Your hands cradle my face as if I am crumbling marble
₅Venusian statue that you've finished carving
Delicacy and care reside in your fingers

I cannot see you, your everything is blurred
You are a frustratingly unfinished masterpiece
You are an out-of-focus black and white Kodak photo
Candid snapshot a girl has taken with her camera phone
Wordless and soundless,
Silent in an equally soundless room

I hear our syncopated breathing,
Softened, pulsing rhythm, cadence of your breath
Fanning across my bottom lip
You open your mouth
A sliver of light from your window
Curtains, diaphanous, like gossamer silk
Flutter in the stream of your quiet fan

You speak
My eyelids flit like moth's wings on a Spring evening
You speak
There's approximately four striations of shades
In your irises,
Flecks of opaque peridot and ochre
God drizzled in spools of honey
Swirled in the colors of crisp autumn leaves and sun-dappled orange
Called it done

I press my face against your cheek
Leave a lasting imprint of you there
Your touch will be ghost-like
I'll feel it on my skin seven months later

“You are so pretty you know that?”
Your eyes split me open
Like a cadaver whose bones were strung
With pearls and fitted with chains
Beauty in the macabre
Beauty in a breakdown

the squinting of the wind
as it whips me about
pulling and driving,
throwing me into the street,
leaving me gasping for air.

then the lights from above.
orange and violet and flecked
like your cheeks, like your ring.
you're looking into my eyes,
something is reminding you of me.

the low hum from the backseat
we don't know all the words
but we know most of them.
somehow, you don't look over at me.

the lethargy and strange pellucidity of dusk
in the corner of the city where light hangs
like satin off the curves of a goddess
getting ready for bed.

then, one thousand cups of black tea.
hands on the table, the glass door
calendars all falling off the walls
as the room shakes, days drifting to the floor.

everything spins in orbit
and it doesn't seem to matter
that nothing makes sense,
that the liberty of delineation
is intentionally stripped.

an effulgent twilight may be soaking
through your raw and simmering skin,
but my only fear in this moment
is that I'm still holding back.

"One thing good I can say about the hotel,
There were plenty of skanky crack ******
Strolling the boulevard.”
So began my Expedia travel review.
As usual, I got less than I’d paid for.
My review title:
“Next Time, Sans the Engineering
& Construction Inquietude.”
Pulling into the parking lot
One immediately recognized the scene,
A modern version of Cecil B. DeMille.
The 10 Commandments.
Pyramids of Egypt
Reconstructed, Escher-like
As a 21st Century construction site.
Oh, yes,
Everything Habib had in mind
When he subcontracted
The entire task to Hershel--
Hersh from Kanersh--
The famed,
But cursed
Jewish architect.
I digress, yes, but only partly.

Noise-induced stress, anyone?
The electrified multi-frequency drone,
Saturates like a post-war Levittown
Sea of Cape Cods . . . cods?
Bacala: stiff, salted, yellow & oily.
Cacophony:  a Festivus for the rest of us.
Oh yeah, Mr. Costanza.
Post-war?
Hardly, the mahogany wax
Still faintly, freshly sober,
New cards shuffled.
New cards dealt.
At that mahogany conference table
We weep at stacked decks,
Aces & Kings for the privileged few
Deuces & treys for the hoi polloi.
That hinky Bretton Woods poker game,
Convened while the war went on,
WWII still raging, guns still firing,
Tanks still rolling & rolling along.
There sat the Ruling Elite,
The 1%--as they are calling us these days--
We didn’t even offer
Our Gold Star mothers,
A moment to
Hold their breath.
Not one decent interval of silence.
Nein, nein, nein.
It was let’s get back to business.
Capital resuming its
Uncivil War on Labor.
First, add decades of slow boa squeeze.
Inflation, insidiously mocking Calvin--
Your ethos of work
In smithereens--
(Smithereens.
[From Irish Gaelic smidir n,
Diminutive of smiodar,
Small fragment.] ...)
A recipe for Sisyphus,
Your down-the-ladder warped reflection
Stares back at you as your
Up-the-ladder false hopes
Go escalator bye-bye; and by,
Staring at you,
Pinning you to a wall
With Econ 101 clarity,
As taught by Karl,
Another wily Jew:
It is a treadmill, after all,
Noting again the clever juxtaposition
Of a Jew and a handful of Christians,
Devotees of random Protestant sects.
The following link is a gift to some struggling writer @wattpad.
(Who Cares ON HOLD INDEFINITELY Chapter Twenty - Page 1 ...
www.wattpad.com/4225578-who-cares-on-hold-indefinitely-chapte­r-twe...‎
Apr 22, 2012 - Leanna was totally stunned by this and immediately halted in her tracks and began to scream at such a high decibel, Opia could hear her ears...) That’s right, another commercial in the middle of a ******* poem. The proceeding link was a gift to some struggling writer @wattpad.@*******.
Expedia Review:
The Windemere.
Its last syllable from Old English 'mere',
Meaning 'lake' or 'pool'.
A magical name
Reeking, swirling through your mind,
Lavender & English lakes
With steam ferries.
Ne c'est pas?

I arrived at the front desk?
The computers are down,
Having earlier that day
Been hacked into.
No restaurant.
No bar.
Nowhere.
Scaffolding & drop cloths,
Everywhere.
Construction materiel,
Everywhere.
When you finally get your swipe card,
You Notice that the “Buy One, Get One”
Pizza promo, laminated on one side,
Expired about 5 months ago.
The drive to the room
Is wry recognition that
The Windemere Hotel
& Conference Center*
Is actually a ****** motel.
Backhoes & cranes,
Everywhere.
Multiple, out-door spaces
Sectioned off with police
Yellow crime-scene tape.
Everywhere.
Railings on balconies
Appear to be seconds away
From giving way.
Odor, anyone?
You can count on it,
The moment that electronically-challenged keybox
Gives up its flashing green dot ghost.

Most times you get less
Than you pay for.
$47.00 a night?
Please ask,
Next time,
What's the catch?
“WHAT DID YOU LIKE ABOUT YOUR STAY?”
Again, Numb-nuts,
You think it’s a poem.
But it’s actually my
Fakokta Expedia Review.
WHAT DID I LIKE?
This one I had to think about,
Coming up, quickly . . .
(An advertisement generated by algorithms for your amusement follows)
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Coming quickly with Dwight David Eisenhower,
The man we liked & called IKE.
When asked if his VP Nixon--
Running for President himself,
In a tight race with JFK—
Had distinguished himself in any way
In his 8 years as his Vice-President?”
IKE replied:
"Give me a minute and
I'm sure I can think of something."
Not a ringing endorsement.
IKE knew something
The rest of us had to wait for 1973,
Reserving a room at the The Watergate,
Close to Foggy Bottom & Georgetown:
THE WATERGATE HOTEL
& CONFERENCE CENTER,
Just like The Windemere,
Another ****** motel.
**** me! What was I thinking?

Not to mention lack of privacy,
Be it acoustic or visual and,
In one case a veritable DEA bust.
Crack ***** in residence next door,
Cranes her neck around the balcony wall,
A would-be nurse, perhaps,
Offering home hospice &
Concern for your raspy,
***-smoking cough.
Her pox face bursting in on
The long anticipated
Marijuana Miller Time.
On the veranda, early evening,
Lighting up your first joint of the day,
Desperately in need
Of some herbal peace of mind.
Ne c'est pas?
Her big crack-***** head
Giraffes like crazy around the wall,
Invading your balcony space.
*******? Who was that?
Let’s lock the doors.
Let's hunker down for the night,
Taking turns keeping watch,
Like a couple of shitless scared
Grunts of the DMZ.
(Urban Dictionary: scared shitless www.urbandictionary.com/define. Ph?term=scared%20shitlessIt's when you scare someone to such an extent, you scare the **** out of them, at times causing them to excrement all over the vicinity . . .)
The Expedia Review goes on:
Anything interesting about the surrounding area?
Oh, yes, as previously mentioned:
Plenty of crack ******
Strolling the boulevard.

Hey, Windemere Hotel,
*** am I doing in Mesa, Arizona,
Two days shy of the summer solstice,
And 119 degrees?
That's another story.
But for now,
Hey Windemere,
Here’s a tip:
Next time it's total facility makeover time,
Shut the **** hotel, please.

Our opia
Was *****
On winter nights and
Beneath the summer sun
You looked at me
And fueled my addiction

Our love
Melancholy melody
Droned on
Through the seasons
A constant craving
Until finally I ran out of you

You left me
My addiction still raging full force
You left me
With no help through detox  
And that is why it killed me

that look that you
give me with those
soft and welcoming brown eyes.
Dark like pine.
Looking into them
yet being afraid that I'll
fall in too deep and the
only thing that could save me
would be
me.
how can I save my helpless self
when you make me so
vulnerable.
Feel as if you were an open book
my open book.
Every time you look into my eyes
It's almost
                  invasive.
Stealing a little piece of me
every time.
To then eventually
leaving nothing left
of me remaining but my
lovely bones ..

Every grassy field
In the middle of the day and at the end of the night
With your baggage galloping circles around us
All those car rides
With melodies that sound like that forbidden word
And silence that swallows shaking wrists
Your skin, your lips
They feel the same as country skies
My eyes
An ocean that you swim, still mastering that cross stroke

I ache to unlock that door of your mind
I know that every receptor is golden
And every lobe glows violet
Our brains
Always intercepting, collapsing under memory's warning
It seems we'll never give in

Just as you look away
Just as I'm learning to lock myself out
That solar heart exposes us
Descendents of icarus will always need more
your veins
They run with the same fire as mine

I have a plan
I want for everything real, I want to take a bite
Out of the whole world
I want to absorb everything bright
And reflect it at a higher wattage
I dont waste my time on silence
I dont beat around the bush of modesty

I know when I need to grow
I know the right time to dive
And the right time
To give up the gun

I've finished hiding behind dignity
I see no point to playing coy anymore
My vision blurs when you enter a room
I won't pretend I dont know what that means
Not when i rely so heavily on my sight

So go ahead, let it tear us apart
I've found the cure for a broken heart
In poetry and sad songs
And a sunset soaked lake
So here goes

Even if I told myself I'd never say it first
With the feeling of that moment
Spent between the cliff and the water
Even if it means no more good mornings
With the feeling of your hand on my thigh
I am afraid
But i think that makes me brave

Kiss me in the cruel beating wind,
your rubatosis against mine,
after I feel our opia.
Make me invincible to everything
except you.

I stand on the corner of your alley
hypnotized by your history,
sippin’ interchangeable, infinite
equations from your soul, punctuatin’
reflected rhymes inside my head,
consecutive clauses, the type of ****
that suffocates your subconscious.
There’s no repentance from your existence,
no self-absorbed lines that echo
through my ears, just metaphoric tunes
spinning without reason, and without
reason, mystical flames create earthquakes
across my plantation, and I know I’m
conceited, but I’d rather mix patterns
that blend in Saturn, in fact, mix drums
that fade worlds, mix drums that questions
minds, mix drums that spin sea waves.
Meanwhile, ****** knock me down cuz
I’m floating off orbit, cuz I’m spring
on your ****** Opia, cuz your cosmic
plane controls my veins, freestyling
gibberish, soulless lyrics, aimin’ to cause
confusion, and through confusion,
contradiction, and through contradiction,
annihilation of my mind.  **** them!
Ignorance is no more than expressions,
no more than a candle without a burning
flame, sinkin’, imprisoned, revolving
around a moonlight planet.  Besides,
who gives a **** what they say!
All I want to do is slow crawl
in your powdered nectar, get high
off mary jane, while my brain raps
and taps in city streets, and the inhalin’
and exhalin’ of your culture cancellin
out my fact and fiction.

Eyes meet,
heart fleets.

Just for a short moment.

The ambiguity of my eyes locking with those of stranger is one that I can never get used to.

What was laced in your eyes, what did you want to tell me that you were too scared to say?

Was it the colour of my eyes on warm summer's day,
or the beauty my child's smile in a rainy may?

Was it your desire to walk up to me and say hello,
or your sudden interest in the confidence I walked with?

Eyes meet,
hearts fleet,
the awkwardness that comes with knowing you have met eyes with a person you were not meant to be looking at,
the pain that stings in your heart after locking eyes with the one you owe an apology to because of your selfish morality.

Eyes meet and suddenly flutter away, look of annoyance plastered on my sister's face, saying, "can I help you?"
"Why are you staring at me?"

I've never been so clean
and always I crave opia.

While searching for unladen skies,
he came across a magpie resting in
a clear patch of swept dirt at his mangled feet.
(and here the story begins, don’t you think?)
Wait—
Do I intimidate you?
With my silken sashay of solicited yet lavish and rattled ramifications?
Complicated, complex logic behind words you don’t know—
words like sonder, opia, and undulate,
euphonious, sempiternal, and sisyphean.
You called them ‘fancy words’,
as if they are dressed for a masked ball and
in elegant suits and dresses, or someplace in-between,
they are dancing the waltz across marble mezzanines behind grey crenellations.
I’m not asking for the meaning of life or great quintessential and quaint questions,
but yet you ponder what’s after death before looking upon my countenance.
Do I require an irascible attitude in ninth grade, forced to be seen,
a scathing cascade of inward curses, each more extensive than the last?
(*******, *******, *******, and a variety of words meaning **** and ******)
So ashamed to fail, as though I belong to a singular meaning and no other.
I tell you now, I am not
crisscrossed with sultry language and full of your ‘can’t’ attitudes.
Whether I make you work or lie in agony over a line,
the job is to provide not pain, but—
understanding, comfort, hiraeth, empathy,
a place for anger, loneliness, emptiness
and inexpressible language…
but as words are only one facet to this endless complication,
I think you should pay attention to the small things.
But I won't dictate your life,
I’m only a broken magpie confined to earth,
Clothed in feathers and ultimatums.